The non-profit organization wanted a campaign that would demand attention and they sure got it.

The countdown clock has been removed at NoOneDeservesToDie.org and in its place is a message that says, “Many people believe that if you have lung cancer you did something to deserve it. It sounds absurd, but it’s true. Lung cancer doesn’t discriminate and neither should you. Help put an end to the stigma and the disease.”

The campaign seemed to have worked; people are talking about lung cancer and the non-profit organization Lung Cancer Alliance has gotten a lot of people’s attention. The real question is, will they listen?

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A guerrilla marketing campaign involving posters declaring “________ deserves to die” has been spotted in cities around the country including Seattle, New York, California and Chicago.

The in-your-face posters feature portraits of various types of people including the wealthy, the beautiful, the hip and even animal lovers stating they deserve to die are wheat pasted onto the sides of payphones and hung at bus stops. The graphics have raised a lot of questions and caused quite a stir resulting in some being ripped off by people who have taken offense to the message.

The real question is, what do the posters mean? The website NoOneDeservesToDie.org appears to be the source of the campaign features a countdown clock that expires Thursday at midnight and will hopefully reveal more information at that time. The little information that is currently on the site states, “Every year over 160,000 lives are lost to a deadly disease,” which has lead people to speculate the campaign is linked to lung cancer. According to The Center for Disease Control 158,592 people died from lung cancer in 2008 so the connection is plausible.

Several years ago American Legacy Foundation launched an anti-smoking campaign called The Truth which used a similarly dramatic method of spreading its message involving mannequins to represent smokers who have died due to smoking.

The only certain way to know the meaning behind the posters is to check back at midnight when more information will be released.

The photo belongs to flickr user lynnfriedman and was available for use under the Creative Commons License.